Curriculum Offer
Intent
At Newport Infant School, we believe we have a fabulous curriculum offer for our pupils. We have a broad and balanced curriculum that is carefully planned and delivered through a cross curricular offer and driven by vibrant and exciting themes that give clear and inspiring contexts for learning. ‘Ready Eddie’ is our own superhero for learning and helps children understand and build their own learning power. This also supports our ethos ‘Working together to be the best that we can be’.
We use a range of first hand experiences, good quality literature and educational visits and experiences to stimulate our pupils and provide them with meaningful learning opportunities that motivate them as learners.
Our planning ensures that learning takes place across different curriculum areas allowing children to make links in their knowledge and to deepen their understanding of key concepts by using and applying their learning.
Coordinated long term planning in all subject areas ensures that there is progression of skills across the three years. We offer opportunities to revisit and deepen learning through a range of relevant contexts which support our pupils in building their knowledge and understanding of their world. The progression is carefully planned to link to the Early Learning Goals at the end of Reception and to the Year 3 planning and the curriculum offer in Key Stage 2.
In our medium and short term planning, key literacy and numeracy skills are developed through the work in many foundation subjects which give purpose to writing, reading and mathematical tasks and activities. The year group teams work closely to offer parity across the classes and their collaboration ensures the best offer for every pupil. The multi-sensory approach to teaching and learning offered across school engages all pupils, supporting those with additional needs or barriers to their learning and providing challenge for our most able pupils.
Our classroom environments are exciting, engaging and relevant to the termly theme. They contain artefacts, books and posters that stimulate pupils and promote enquiry, awe and wonder. Whilst we also try to use the outdoor areas as a stimulus or as an extended part of the classrooms.
Interwoven into our termly curriculum plans are opportunities to promote SMSC links, Heritage work, links to the community and with the local junior school, and we also try to incorporate a whole school termly project. Some of this work is highlighted in our ’30 Things to achieve at Newport Infants’ booklets, which children complete over the three years they are with us.
We feel passionate about children valuing and understanding their local area, and so each year group has a different focus linked to our Heritage Project ‘Where my feet take me….’ which they develop over the year. ‘Super Sue’ is another important aspect of our school which supports the children to know how to keep safe and is embedded in all we do.
Implementation
Planning ensures that lessons are interactive and multi-sensory, immersing children in the context of their learning and thus ensuring high levels of engagement and the development of long term memory. High quality resources, experiences and staff with excellent subject knowledge all contribute to the rich learning opportunities for children. Teachers link learning between subjects, lessons and over time to ensure that connections are made explicit for children which enables them to make sense of their world. Lessons are well-balanced with effective teacher input and opportunities for pupils to use and apply their knowledge and skills. Independence is encouraged through the resourcing of the classroom environments and children take responsibility for their learning from Early Years.
The progression both through each subject area and across the curriculum as a whole ensures that children build up knowledge and understanding systematically and make sense of their learning, revisiting key knowledge and vocabulary regularly and linking it to the next stage of their learning.
Pupils are encouraged to extend their learning outside school with activities and challenges to pursue at home.
Impact
Pupil progress is monitored daily through assessment for learning within lessons and marking and feedback both during lessons and after school in pupil workbooks. Verbal feedback during lessons ensures that key misconceptions are addressed quickly and progress is assured. Close the gap marking ensures that pupils revisit key errors and understand their next steps.
Reading, writing and maths are assessed using a range of strategies including assessments and marking ladders in addition to the ongoing daily assessment that teachers carry out. Progress in these subjects is evidenced at the end of each term for pupils.
Foundation subjects are assessed at the end of units of work through a range of activities in class. At the end of each term a best fit judgement is made by the class teacher for each subject.
Where a pupil accesses an intervention, their progress is assessed every three weeks to ensure that the activity and targets are relevant and that the targeted work is effective.
More information can be found in our curriculum design document which shows how the subjects link together and where there are opportunities for review.
Curriculum Design 2023
EYFS
Intent
The early Years are crucial to enable children to develop into resilient, independent learners who are creative and think critically and thus become school ready, becoming a Ready Eddie learner. Through the Foundation Stage curriculum, we believe children have the right to reach their full potential and be the best that they can be.
In the Early Years we aim to:
- Provide learning experiences that cater for the needs and interests of the children in each cohort
- To ensure that children receive an ambitious curriculum that develops inquisitive and independent learners,
- To ensure that all learners reach their potential through, identifying those who need additional support
- Provide a fun, engaging and awe provoking learning experience, that enthuses each child to learn
- To develop an environment where children can rehearse and consolidate new knowledge and skills
Our curriculum has been strategically developed to ensure that throughout the year children are developing their knowledge in order to achieve the curriculum outcomes for the end of the year; These are outlined in our curriculum document. Our curriculum begins at 2 and is progressive across the Early Years and Beyond. The curriculum journey in Reception year builds upon the experiences, knowledge and skills gained during Nursery and lays building blocks on which knowledge and skills are developed in Year One and Two. The curriculum in Newport Infant and Nursery School is developed with our children in mind, with a focus upon our community.
Implementation
Our Early Years begins at 2 years and ends in the child’s Reception year. Our ethos is that children learn best through active learning, learning through play. Play helps children to learn and develop through doing and talking, which research has shown to be the means by which young children think. Our setting is equipped with a wide range of resources across a variety of learning zones that supports the seven areas of the EYFS curriculum. These are skilfully developed and planned for by staff to provide meaningful experiences and create learning opportunities for pupils across an engaging and enhanced environment both inside and out.
Adults work alongside children during their play and active learning modelling skills, encouraging independence, giving them chance to rehearse and embed newly acquired knowledge and skills, whilst providing opportunities to scaffold learning, deepen understanding and challenge thinking. Alongside our enabling environment we ensure the children learn through a careful balance of both child led and adult led activities.
A strong over-arching theme drives the learning and provides real life contexts for children to develop skills and knowledge about their world. This theme, along with the children’s interests and needs, is reflected in the environment, which is enhanced to create awe and wonder, and to enthuse children to engage in and to begin to extend their own learning, embedding this skill by Reception year. There is a clear focus on stories, poetry, vocabulary, communication and language – all integral skills that enable learning across all areas. Vocabulary in stories and books is explore weekly and identified in our wonderful words approach.
We develop our language and communication targeting children through StokeSay screening and implementing Talk Boost sessions. We begin this in Nursery and the talk boost approach is followed through the whole school. We deliver phonics through RWI, delivering daily sessions from 3 years onwards, and additional targeted support for children where needed. When children begin to take part in guided and individual reading sessions our reading is linked to the RWI scheme. Maths is delivered daily, and children have opportunities to develop their number sense daily through the well-planned environment.
We believe that all children at Newport Infant Foundation Stage matter. We give our children every opportunity to achieve their best. We do this by taking account of our children’s range of life experiences when we are planning for their learning. Staff set realistic and challenging expectation addressing and identifying the needs of our children. Using our professional judgement and understanding of child development, practitioners identify children who are not on track and intervene quickly and effectively, ensuring early identification. Children who seem to be at risk are monitored more closely and given support through our helping hands approach, so that the right decisions can be made about what sort of extra help is needed. Within Nursery offer Listen with Lucy and Attention Bucket is used as an intervention approach.
We assess the children termly against our curriculum outcomes supported by Development Matters. Any children who are not inline with age expectations are targeted and pupil progress meetings with staff take place to ensure high impact of interventions and future planning. All Nursery children have 3 next steps that are reviewed regularly, Reception have key nest steps in prime and specific areas.
We endeavour to adapt our offer to meet the needs of each cohort, offering additional support and learning opportunities for those who need it, catering for the unique child. We review and reflect our EYFS offer against the seven features of effective practice outlined in the Early Years Statutory Framework (2021).
Impact
We aim to ensure children leave the Foundation Stage ready for the next year ahead. Through an ambitious, broad and balanced curriculum, the children will leave the Foundation Stage enthused to learn with a rich vocabulary, deep knowledge of stories and be equipped with the Ready Eddie learning attitudes and characteristics that will enable them to become successful learners.
Using a range of assessment strategies alongside good practitioner knowledge, the children are assessed against the curriculum outcomes and the Early years Profile at the end of the year. We expect all children to make more than expected progress against their starting points. These outcomes are monitored and moderated by the EYFS lead through a robust quality assured procedure.
We strive to develop readers and writers who are phonically able and independent, mathematicians who have a deep number sense, and learners who have experiences that develop a rich sense of the world around them. We aim to create happy children, who are good citizens and friends, and who truly love to learn.
Staff use a range of methods to collect information about pupil progress including post-it observations, 2simple software, photographs and information given to school by parents evidencing “wow moments” witnessed outside school. These are all recorded in a Learning Journey that reflects upon the child’s unique skills and learning experience, and enable the staff to thoroughly plan for the next steps and needs for each individual child. Parent workshops take place regularly across the year; Parent partnership is an integral part of the curriculum offer at our school and it supports our pupils to understand that learning is everywhere and in everything that they do.
Parents can find out more about the curriculum by reading each individual subject on the website, by following the class pages on the website or Class Dojo, or speaking to their child’s class teacher.